


x marks the spot

by orphan_account



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends to Lovers, Holding Hands, Injury, M/M, Mild Blood, Pre-Slash, Psychological Drama, Saw AU, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 14:50:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1473769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saw Universe Fusion. </p><p>Jim wakes up on the floor of a locked room with a man he doesn't know, both of them cuffed to the wall. Can they escape this inescapable situation? Can they come away from this with more than just their lives in tact? Can they follow the rules to gain their freedom? Can they play the game? Live or die, the choice is theirs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	x marks the spot

**Author's Note:**

> I rewatched Saw III and IV last night and had a bit of inspiration.

Jim comes to on a hard, what feels like concrete, floor. He feels groggy and hung-over although he doesn’t remember drinking last night. In fact, he doesn’t remember all that much of anything about  _last night_ . Even the vague concept of yesterday is like a bare haze in his mind. It’s unusual for him to drink so much that he manages to forget; maybe someone finally hit him hard enough to knock a good few brain cells out. Maybe for once his luck has finally come through.

It’s dark when he opens his eyes. He can make out the four grotty walls of a room, there are stray pieces of rubble and sheets of plastic over to his left, there’s a body-shaped mound unmoving against the wall opposite him. He blinks hard, hoping it will help him see better in the darkness. He shifts and realises one foot is shackled to the wall. This doesn’t make any sense. The cuff is thick and heavy and it’s definitely metal. It isn’t just a stray pair of fluffy pink handcuffs and he isn’t cuffed naked to a bed. This is wrong. He pulls at it, yanking his leg first but then pulling at the clasp with his hand. It needs a key.

The lights come on all too suddenly and Jim has to squint to get used to it. There is blood on the walls. Jim needs to be sick. But he hasn’t eaten anything. This is wrong. So wrong. He pulls at the cuff again. Frantic.

Before he turns full blown hysterical the body over the opposite side of the room inhales deeply. The sound and movement draws Jim’s gaze and he watches intently for a moment. The body is male. A little older than Jim, maybe, but not by much. He’s shackled too. The left foot, just like Jim.

Then Jim notices something else. Something much closer to him, just inches away. A gun. Beside the gun, slightly perched on the muzzle is a tape-player. He looks over to the rousing man and notices there’s a tape-player beside him too. But not a gun.

“Who are you?” Jim asks, softly enough not to startle but loud enough to sound firm, resolute.

There’s a few moments of shifting before the other man looks at him.

“What?” he counters gruffly. “Who’re _you_?”

“I asked you first,” Jim states, pursing his lips. But the man doesn’t seem to care about courtesy so Jim huffs and begrudgingly introduces himself, “Jim Kirk.”

“McCoy, Leonard McCoy.”

“You think this is some sort of prank?” Jim asks.

“You’ve got the gun, kid, you tell me,” Leonard scoffs.

“It’s not mine.” Leonard seems to be ignoring Jim in favour of assessing the room. He’s going through the motions, Jim figures, just as Jim did. But it achieves the exact same thing that Jim’s assessment did. Nothing. Then, Jim watches Leonard pull at his own shackle. But it’s futile. They’re trapped in a concrete room that has a door on the wall neither of them would be able to reach while they’re tethered by thick metal links. There’s a digital timer above the door that reads 90:00 in bright red. Not like the dark red that stains the walls.

“You think the blood is real?” Jim wonders.

“It’s real.”

“How can you know for certain?”

“Just trust me,” is all Leonard says. Jim feels like he can. But he doubts that feeling. His instincts tell him that this man is the reason he’s here. This man isn’t his friend.

“Play your tape,” Jim prompts, and, for once, Leonard listens to him, obeying instruction without so much as a muttered objection.

“Hello, Doctor McCoy,” the voice is serious and not unfamiliar, although Jim can’t immediately place where he’s heard it before. “Do you want to play a game? For the last three years _you_ have played a game with your own life. A game of luck. Drinking in excess and endangering the lives of yourself and others. You lost your father, your wife and your daughter. Is today the day you finally lose yourself? The choice is yours.”

“That’s resoundingly unhelpful,” Leonard huffs, sounding unruffled, too unruffled.

“So you’re an alcoholic doctor?” Jim scoffs. “Great.”

“Surgeon,” Leonard corrects. “Now you play your tape.”

So Jim does.

“James, you’re no doubt wondering where you are. Perhaps this room will serve as your tomb. Or perhaps not. Only your actions can decide that. You have let others decide your fate for too long. Today, _you_ will lead. X marks the spot, James. The only question is, do you want to play?”

The recording ends, the timer beeps, begins to lose seconds and Jim is more confused than enlightened.

“No I fucking don’t,” he grits out. “X marks the spot? What is this? A fucking treasure hunt?”

“He didn’t say anything about the gun,” Leonard notes. “X marks the spot, it’ll be the next part of the game.”

“Why do you know that?”

“Don’t you read the fucking news, kid? This is a Nero trap.”

“Nero?” Jim frowns. “The serial killer?”

“One and the same,” Leonard nods.

“You know they call him Nero because his first victim was his wife?” Jim wonders, “and he brands his victims with an old coin, one with Nero’s bust on it.”

“I didn’t,” Leonard says, “but I treated one of the survivors.”

“Shit,” Jim exhales. “Why us? I mean, why together?”

“I don’t know,” Leonard admits. He tentatively moves closer to Jim, crouching in the middle of their dark cell. “X marks the spot,” he says, eyeing the wall over Jim’s head.

Jim turns around and sees the X marked in red paint, or maybe blood. There are a few bricks that look tampered with, loose. He can stand, even with his shackled ankle, and he reaches for the bricks, slowly, hesitantly, pulling them away. He braces himself before reaching his hand in. It’s dusty, or maybe it’s just brick powder. His hand pats around, trying to find something. His fingers come to rest over something. A box.

It’s too big for him to grab with just one hand and so Jim removes the last brick that forms a perfectly square hole in the wall and leans in with his other hand, pulling the box out and setting it in front of them.

It’s just a clear plastic box. Jim unclips the lid to reveal another tape, a beaker inside a glass box, two pieces of what look like medical equipment although Jim has no idea how they work or what one might use them for, another cord that looks like it should connect to some sort of electronics and two blades.

“Doesn’t Nero usually set up his own equipment?” Jim questions, looking up at Leonard confusedly.

“But this is your game right?” Leonard suggests. “You have to take the lead.”

“But I don’t know how,” Jim says.

“There’s a key in the beaker,” Leonard notes, “tip it upside down.”

“I can’t tip it; it’s too heavy to lift,” Jim counters, lifting the rest of the equipment out instead before trying to squeeze his hand into the opening of the box, his fingers barely graze the edge of the beaker, “I can’t get to it.”

“We have to fill the beaker,” Leonard guesses.

“But not with water,” Jim agrees grimly.

“Apart from those two blades, that’s all transfusion equipment.

“We fill the beaker with blood?”

“We fill the beaker with blood,” Leonard nods.

Jim reaches for the tape-player and clicks ‘play’.

“Before you is everything you need to open the door that will set you free from this room. You have always had privileges, James, privileges you have chosen to ignore in favour of clinging onto the past. Privilege you have chosen to waste in favour of risking your life time and time again. Today I present you with the tools to your salvation. The question is: who will you save? The beaker must fill with eight pints of blood in order to release the door mechanism and provide you with the key to your shackles. Perhaps you must ask yourself, what tools outside of the box have I provided for you to use to complete your task? Your instincts will tell you to do one thing, but I suggest you do the other.”

The recording ends with a click of the play button followed by ominous silence.

“Me and the gun,” Leonard says. “We’re the other tools.”

“I shoot you and take your blood?” Jim wonders.

“What do your instincts tell you to do?” Leonard counters.

“To shoot you and take your blood,” Jim repeats, trying to smile. It’s crooked and broken, just how he feels. “The human body has eight pints of blood right?”

“Yeah on average, could be anywhere between six and ten depending on the size of the person,” Leonard nods.

“What does your instinct tell you to do?”

“I’m a doctor, my instinct tells you to let you shoot me to save yourself,” Leonard shrugs.

“Well, I feel like an asshole now,” Jim smirks, and even in the grotty, artificial yellow light the room is now bathed in Jim can see a ghost of a smile pulling at Leonard’s lips. “If I’m meant to shoot you then what’s with the blades?”

“You’re not meant to shoot me,” Leonard says, “you’re meant to do the opposite.”

“You can survive on half that amount, right?”

“Yeah,” Leonard nods. “That’s why there’s two pieces of every bit of equipment. We’re meant to give equally to save each other. It’s testing our desire to live, right? That’s his mantra? We’ve been pissing our lives up the wall, now we have to earn the right to keep them.”

“I’ll set up the electronic side of things if you help me with the medical stuff?” Jim bargains.

They set to work, with just under 80:00 minutes left. Jim shifts towards the door, fiddling with the loose circuitry until he figures out how the mechanisms fit together so that the beaker filling and the buoy inside the beaker will trigger the electronic current for the door. It looks like a very dubious mechanism but if Nero says it will work then it will work.

“What’s your story, anyway?” Leonard asks, prepping the equipment at the other end of the line.

“My story?”

“Well, you know… privileges?” he prompts.

“Uh,” Jim hesitates, but if he can’t tell the hot doctor he might end up dying alongside then who can he tell. “My father was a cop; he was shot before I was born, left a huge inheritance as well as the pay out from the state. By rights I should have gone to college or whatever, but I ah, dropped out.”

“Of college?”

“Of high school.” Jim corrects. “I’m a fuck-up. Rap sheet as long as my arm.”

“And how does that play into the risking your life part?” Leonard wonders.

“I get into fights. I _start_ fights,” Jim corrects.

“Right,” Leonard nods. “I ah, I lost my father too. Three years ago. He had a terminal illness… I assisted his suicide.”

“And the wife and daughter?”

“Joce didn’t wanna raise our baby girl with a drunk and depressed Daddy, I don’t blame her,” Leonard sighs.

“You could get them back though, after this,” Jim suggests, “straighten your life out.”

“She remarried,” Leonard explains, “but we weren’t ever really… we were always more like friends.”

“Do it for your little girl then,” Jim shrugs.

“I miss her real bad,” Leonard murmurs, “it’ll be her birthday next Tuesday.”

“How old?”

“Six.”

“Shit,” Jim says, surprised, “you don’t look that old.”

“I’ll be twenty nine in January.”

“You’re smart then,” Jim says, “if you’re a surgeon so young.”

“Yeah, skipped a couple grades,” Leonard nods. “I think I have this all figured out. I don’t know what the blades are for.”

“To cut through our feet if this all goes wrong?” Jim suggests.

“Don’t say that,” Leonard blanches, “it won’t go wrong. And it’d take a month for those blades to cut through bone. I’m a doctor not a magician.”

Jim crawls away from the door and over to Leonard, whose ripped two lengths of fabric from his shirt, exposing a toned stomach and a treasure trail that Jim really shouldn’t be taking any notice of at this precise moment.

“Tie this around your upper arm,” he instructs, handing Jim one of the shreds of cloth. He watches Leonard, following his actions. He folds the sleeve of his t-shirt up and secures the fabric, clenching his fist. “I’ll do me first, I’m bigger ‘an you, theoretically I’ll have more blood to spare.”

“Okay,” Jim nods, watching as Leonard makes an incision in his upper-forearm with one of the blades and feeds the tube into his skin.

“Hold it there, would you?” he asks. “I need both hands.”

“Right,” Jim nods, again, pressing his fingers onto the skin and tube as Leonard was doing: one finger applying pressure just above the incision and two fingers holding the tube in place. He watches the tube turn red and hears blood begin to drain and drip into the beaker. It looks so pathetic. Drip drip drip. This is going to take forever.

“It’s gonna hurt,” Leonard warns, “asshole didn’t supply us with a proper kit, just a tube with no needle and these blades. I’ll have to cut you.”

“I trust you,” Jim says, and he means it.

“Why?”

“Because you’re a doctor?” Jim shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Breathe,” Leonard says gently. He makes the cut as efficiently as he can and Jim hisses against the bite of pain, grunting as the dull end of the tube presses into his body. Leonard holds his tube in place and applies pressure to the side of the incision and Jim readjusts his own fingers accordingly.

“Now we wait?” Jim wonders.

“The blood will drain fast for a while but then we might have to redo the incision,” Leonard says, “let’s see how it goes.”

They have 56:29 minutes left, and the seconds continue to count down relentlessly.

Jim closes his eyes and leans against Leonard’s shoulder.

They wait in silence.

But it’s hard. Listening to nothing but the sound of your own blood leaving your body.

When Jim opens his eyes the clock says five minutes have passed.

“It’s filling faster than I thought it would,” Jim says, feeling slightly lightheaded. They’re at just over three pints and Jim’s arm feels strange, tingly and numb and burning all at the same time.

“Our adrenaline will settle soon, it’ll start to go slower.”

“You’re full of sunshine,” Jim scoffs.

“We’re in a Nero trap,” Leonard huffs, “do you expect me to smile?”

“A little optimism wouldn’t go amiss,” Jim counters. “I could have shot you.”

“You still can,” Leonard shrugs.

“But I won’t.”

“I’m grateful.”

“You don’t sound it.”

“I’ll take you out for dinner when we get out of here,” Leonard snorts.

“Good,” Jim huffs. “I don’t eat seafood.”

“You’re really something,” Leonard tries to chuckle. It sounds choked but Jim will give him an A for effort.

“I try,” is all Jim says.

“Why don’t you eat seafood?”

“’m allergic.”

“Stay awake, kid,” Leonard murmurs, squeezing Jim’s free hand with his.

“I am awake,” Jim refutes, only slightly more alert.

“How’d you like Italian?”

“Mmm,” Jim agrees, “pasta and pizza and ice cream.”

“Not all at the same time I hope,” Leonard jibes.

“I don’t know, if you can’t eat like an animal when a fancy doctor’s paying, when can you?” Jim wonders.

“Good point,” Leonard nods. “What ice cream?”

“You’re good at this,” Jim says, “at the distracting part.”

“I’m specialising in neurosurgery,” Leonard starts, “some of our patients have to be awake for their procedures, the distracting is a handy tool to have.”

“You’re really smart then,” Jim notes. “You don’t seem like the evil types Nero usually goes for.”

“Neither do you,” Leonard grants. “But he doesn’t go for the evil types, not always. He goes for the ungrateful types. I think I fit. I mean, like you said, smart surgeon, right? I should be singing from the rooftops.”

“You can do that after we go for dinner.”

“Six pints,” Leonard says and Jim blinks a couple of times to straighten his vision.

“We’re gonna make it,” Jim whispers, shocked, amazed… “ _fuck_.”

“You didn’t think we would?”

“How many people usually do?” Jim counters.

“The survival rate is actually one in six,” Leonard shrugs, “but there are two of us.”

“Who did you treat?” Jim asks. “What happened to your survivor.”

“She suffered from bulimia, she had to make herself purge a key, it was wrapped in a length of wire, cut up all the inside of her throat,” Leonard says, “it was about two years ago, I was doing a trauma surgery fellowship.”

“Shit,” Jim whispers.

“Yeah.”

Leonard wiggles his tube slightly, trying to encourage greater blood flow, he presses the tube in deeper and winces but he doesn’t appear to be looking for Jim to do the same.

Jim huffs, and begins to aggravate his wound in the same way. Leonard looks at him warily.

“We’re in this together, right?”

“A lesson in trust,” Leonard agrees. “I guess that fits me pretty well.”

“Me too,” Jim admits. “Usually everyone I love leaves me,” he whispers.

“What a coincidence,” is all Leonard says in response.

“Not you though,” Jim points out.

“No, I’m still here.”

“I’m glad for it.”

“Going into shock probably,” Leonard laughs, breathing heavy. “Why don’t you see if you can reach in yet? Your hands are smaller than mine.”

It’s just over seven pints and Jim’s fingers touch blood when he reaches his hand in, the palm of his hand is too broad to permit him further entry but he can almost grab the key and the buoy. He knocks the buoy out with his knuckle and it rolls out of the beaker and into the box where Jim can collect it from a circle shaped compartment that opens at the side. It’s got a magnet on one side, Jim notes, which is what must connect it to the electronic circuitry that he was assembling earlier.

He presses down on his wound to try and get a little bit more blood so his fingers can grab the key.

When they do it feels less life-altering than it should. He just grabs the key and the buoy and begins to unlock Leonard’s shackle, then his own. Leonard gently removes Jim’s tube and presses his thumb to the wound before he pulls away the length of fabric tied around Jim’s arm and secures it over the puncture, stemming the flow. He does the same to his own wound and they have 17:49 minutes left to slot the buoy into place and for the magnets to trigger the opening of the door.

The sun is glaring. Leonard grunts and Jim looks back into the darker room, holding out his good hand for Leonard to grab and use to pull himself up.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” the doctor notes.

“Just a group of small storage units,” Jim explains, “abandoned probably.”

“Or all owned by Nero.”

“We need to get out of here,” Jim says, tugging Leonard towards to the dirt road ahead of them. “We’ll walk until we can find somewhere and then we’ll call an ambulance.”

“We better hope we find one soon,” Leonard says, squeezing Jim’s hand.

#

Jim comes to on a hard, but decidedly not concrete, bed. He feels groggy. But that’s probably the blood loss. He remembers more than he did the last time he woke up.

Leonard is sitting, asleep, in the chair beside his bed.

Jim’s more relieved than he’d ever tell anyone. Even Leonard.

“You’re awake,” Leonard murmurs, opening his eyes. His face is free of the dirt and stubble it was dusted with when they were in their trap. His eyes are amber and green and chocolate, rimmed in a blue darker than the ocean floor. Jim’s glad they got out of that hell hole, he’s glad he got to see the colour of Leonard McCoy’s eyes. “The cops took my statement; they’ll wanna take yours too. The nurses discharged me but I couldn’t leave without knowing how you faired.”

“I’m fine, Bones,” Jim whispers, letting the doctor run his fingers over the pulse point of his wrist.

“Bones?”

“I’m a doctor not a magician,” Jim repeats, “you said you couldn’t but through bones. You didn’t have to.”

“You’re still high on the pain meds,” Leonard chuckles, “you want me to get you something to eat?”

“What happened to our Italian date?”

“Wait until you’re not in a hospital gown, huh?” Leonard smirks. “I’m sure you have a great ass but the nice folk down at my local Italian ain’t necessarily gonna wanna see it.”

“When can I go?”

“Whenever they discharge you,” Leonard huffs, “and not a moment sooner.”

“Okay, _mom_ ,” Jim scoffs. “Wait, does that mean _you_ wanna see my ass?”

“Unbelievable.”


End file.
